Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Bundaberg Community Safety and Emergency Services Expo will be held this Saturday from nine o'clock, beside the Bunnings Warehouse. This is a great opportunity for the people of my community to come along and, firstly, say thanks to our police, our ambos, our firies and our SES—and there will also be a presence from the Army, Navy and Air Force. If you or your kids are keen to work as a police officer or in one of those other fields, or to join the Defence Force, this is your chance to talk firsthand to those who are right now in the field and doing that type of work.

What a fantastic career this could be, if you enter, as you head to work every day knowing you're making a real difference to the lives of the people around you. You can be inspired by what these amazing emergency services workers do every single day. This is a chance to say thanks to those firies and rural firefighters who've worked tirelessly in the last two weeks to control the devastating fires in Central Queensland. And, while I have the opportunity, can I say I was very thankful to see the shift changes through the Bundaberg airport last Sunday. In fact, between 60 and 80 firefighters from New South Wales were changing out with crews from the same state. There were a dozen fire trucks lined up outside the Bundaberg airport. I thank all those who came to Queensland in our hour of need.

The expo will also host the launch of the local Christmas road safety campaign. As we all know, it is a time of higher risk on our roads. I'd urge everyone to remember the Fatal Five. And while there are too many people to thank for this great event that is happening on the weekend, I will single out Senior Constable Mick Gray. He has worked tirelessly for almost a year to get this expo happening. He has been the driving force. I congratulate him on the work that he has done. He actually wandered into my office in March looking for help to secure Defence Force involvement, and since then he simply hasn't stopped. This expo has got bigger and bigger quite simply because of his passion and his determination to try to do the right thing locally, to try to get more of our local kids involved in the emergency services.

To all those people in my community, make sure you get to the expo this Saturday and say thanks to those people who do work every day, who work shiftwork, who work nights and who work in very tough conditions, mostly in our most desperate hour of need. Once again, regarding the fires in Central Queensland, we had some great relief this week thanks to the weather. Up to 40 millimetres of rain has fallen and certainly dampened down the fires. I say to all of those who have turned out in what I would have to say are some of the toughest weather conditions for firefighting that I've seen in my lifetime, it was a very, very tough event to manage and control. I was involved with the Rural Fire Service myself for many years. I've got an understanding of what they have to face in dealing with these difficult circumstances. I thank the community for doing what they were asked. Unfortunately, we had one loss of life in Central Queensland, but thanks to all those who turned out. Turn out for the Bundaberg Community Safety and Emergency Services Expo.

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